It’s been 465 days already since I’ve submitted my complaint. This office is terrible
Still waiting here, ive been bugging them every month hoping for the decision to come.

This is their last response from today:

In reply to your email dated 23 of August 2018, I would like to inform you that your complaint is in the final stage of the investigation. Kindly note that I do not have a specific date to give you, but once the final decision is issued we will inform you immediately.

Yup, the Financial Ombudsman of Cyprus service was very impersonal to me probably because of the amount of complaints they receive.
Secretaries/assistants have only replied to my inquiries with textbook / semi-automated messages asking me to wait, and simply refuse to share anything about the case or hand me contact information from any investigator that is supposedly handling my case. Luckily my initial report was very complete, but it sucks that I do not receive any feedback or followup on it.
That said I am expecting and hoping for a resolution from them soon.

So what I have gathered from this thread is that it is an Israeli company that is outside the jurisdiction of an actual non Israeli regulating board. Clearly an Israeli regulatory board will not rule in favor of a non Israeli in any case .The money is gone I’m surprised you thought you were going to get a fair trial while having knowledge of the location of the company and regulatory board .

I am completely new to forex, why would you use a company such as this and not a platform like think or swim from Ameritade, they are in Nebraska the customer service is instantly reachable via phone and the most intelligent customer service I have ever had the pleasure of dealing with.

So what I have gathered from this thread is that it is an Israeli company that is outside the jurisdiction of an actual non Israeli regulating board. Clearly an Israeli regulatory board will not rule in favor of a non Israeli in any case .The money is gone I’m surprised you thought you were going to get a fair trial while having knowledge of the location of the company and regulatory board .

I am completely new to forex, why would you use a company such as this and not a platform like think or swim from Ameritade, they are in Nebraska the customer service is instantly reachable via phone and the most intelligent customer service I have ever had the pleasure of dealing with.

Welcome to forex Ortus. You are partially right. Let me elaborate a bit according to what I’ve come to understand.
Alright this is how it works with etoro and most CFD low budget brokers.
Etoro has offices in different countries. They advertise they are regulated by FCA, ASIC and CySEC which is correct and sounds good, right? Well in reality they are giving a false sense of protection misleading new customers that don’t really know how they operate.
The services provided to you are not the same provided to everybody else. The services you receive are regulated only by the regulatory body that corresponds to your jurisdiction:
a) Only if you live in Australia the services they provide you comply with the strict regulations by ASIC. Good reputation, exemplary resolution of disputes.
b) Only if you live in UK the services they provide you comply with the strict regulations by FCA. Good reputation, exemplary resolution of disputes.
c) For everybody else -that is the majority- (who do not live in any of those two countries) the services are offered by etoro europe company located in Cyprus which is only regulated by CySEC. The reputation of this institution is awful compared to the others, regulations are very light, penalties are rare and low. Collective complaints are investigated by CySEC while individual complaints from all over the world go through the Financial Ombudsman of Cyprus (FOC).
As you might guess, the FOC piles complaints and complaints and complaints from all over the world and as a result their service is bad. You can visit their website and you already get the picture: totally outdated site with a 20 year old appearance. There are no updates from their end, they reply late to inquiries, they don’t even respect the times specifically written on their own laws. You do not get personalized responses or contact from investigators. Just late semi-automated responses telling you to wait is what they offer, and believe them, you’ll have to wait.
Now with this scenario I believe they have a great need to clear a huge backlog of complaints and close cases fast, which might lead to quick unfair resolutions without proper professional investigations. But I can’t really say that their ruling has a bias towards local companies which is what I believe you are suggesting. There’s only few cases I found shared in the web to read from and certainly haven’t found enough evidence to support your idea.
It’s clear why low budget CFD brokers/companies from anywhere choose Cyprus for the location of their main offices that provide services to (almost) the whole world: light regulations from a regulatory body that goes easy on them and a system for complaints that is totally inefficient and very convenient to them.

Many of these things I didn’t know back then.
I can say Ameritrade is certainly a good choice. I’m glad you are on the right path on this and that my case has clearly confirmed you have chosen wisely.

Thank you for such a lucid and clear response and educating me to the burdens of an international trader. Its unfortunate you had to learn the hard way, but from your intelligent response I imagine you have more then recouped your loses.

Upon further consideration I realize that this is by far the most effective review you could have given because you have remained responsive to the thread and given a true and honest account of your experience while remaining optimistic, forcing us the readers to make the fatal realization that the money is lost.

@RooKiED , it is indeed disturbing that you need to wait so long for a fair resolution. I’ve previously heard that the Financial Ombudsman is quite busy with various complaints and I guess that it takes a lot of time to investigate each one separately. I suppose that the brokers which are the object of these complaints are not very responsive as well and this slows down the procedure even more. Nevertheless, I am sure that the case will be resolved sooner or later as from what I know, CySec is under the European Regulator which is quite strict especially in the last year, so the chance to receive zero or unfair outcome is lower.

really feel sorry for your loss, hope you the best to earn more in other platforms. btw, this thread gave me a very good lesson for everything and anything justice fair treatment. I am 17 years old malaysian and currently learning more about investment. this thread is indeed exceptional to the others.